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1955 Chevy fiberglass front end.

40K views 49 replies 22 participants last post by  black 62 
#1 ·
Who makes the best?
 
#3 ·
Maker of front en listed above.
Unlimited Products can look back on 30-plus years of providing automotive enthusiasts with fiberglass body components.
Link to Unlimited Products
http://www.up22.com/chevy55N.htm
 
#5 ·
run like the wind. Total junk!!!
I agree!!!!!

I got headlight buckets for my 63 chevyII from products unlimited, and had to rework both of them. Like adding fiberglass mounting flanges!

It is one thing to grind and drill. You expect that most of the time. But to have to add material where there isn't any is unacceptable.

The passenger side had to be almost totally rebuilt at my co$t.

My determination almost gave in to the will to give up. But I now have better than expected. I hate laying fiberglass mat!!!!

Glass Teck is good... Not sure if they do a front end though.

Don
 
#6 ·
I have had very luck with VFN

http://www.vfnfiberglass.com/site.htm

They did send me a decklid that was a little messed up, but they sent a replacement right away. And they told me to keep the first one.

All I have heard from UP22 customers is the lack of Quality and a hassle to deal with

:anim_25: with the front. Just remember every piece of fiberglass will need some work to get it to fit properly.
 
#8 · (Edited)
I got a roll pan for my 55 at RodnRace a few years ago. They were out of West Virgina.

It took well over a month to get. When I called several times I was lied to. The same guy I talked to said it shipped. This happened several times. Only when I demanded my money back and threatened to tell thousands of friends did I receive it in a couple days.
Only to find out it was 2" too short in length and twisted appx. 3". The guy I talked to about it was the same guy that lied. He left me return it for another one.

Why did I expect the next one to be different when they come from the same mould????:hmmmm2:

Make a long story short.
I had to cut it in half and rework it to add 2" in length. I also added mounting flanges where they were missing. I also had to add two more layers of mat in the high stress areas. Fortunatly I had experience from the Unlimited Products chevyII head light bucket rework.

I called RodnRace back to express my displeasure and the cost I layed out for rework. He expressed sympathy and sent me a hood scoop. I threw it away because of the poor quality. It was so bad I would not give it away. Not even to my rat rod friends.

I just did a search of RodnRace and now it looks like they are Scott Rods located in Ohio. They do have 55 one piece front ends for 900.00.

But caution!!!!!! If they are the same people that was RodnRace. These people would be from the same mould also!


I just did some more search on Scott Rods and seems like the guy is a good guy to deal with. He had to undo some dissatisfied customer relationships caused by RodnRace but he may be worth a try.

Don
 
#9 ·
I have bought a 55 one piece tilt front from unlimited and ....well it was( to be nice)...JUNK! It was warped and all drew in (bowed in on the hood and fender sides)and it wouldn't sit flat on the cowl. If I put the dr side where it was even to the cowl the pass side would stick up 4 inches. What a mess. But, I bought a set of doors from Us body Source out of florida and they fit great.
 
#10 ·
I would like to thank everyone for their input which I'm sure has saved me a lot of grief, as I was going to buy one from Unlimited. Right now there don't seem to be any other options. I'm going to see if maybe I can get Harwood interested in making the front clip even though my friend tried a few years ago with no luck. If anyone has any ideas please post them.
 
#11 ·
#23 ·
#16 ·
It's problems like this getting a good quality glass frontend that caused me to reconsider and use the steel one. Rather than weld the hood to the fenders, I clipped it on at the four corners, now I can run with the hood on or off, and the front end flips open either way, no problems! I'm glad I went this way.

If a high quality glass front clip were available, one you could just bolt on to a flip setup with a minimum of fuss, I'd have gone with it, but stories like above from too many of my buddies made me back away and stay with the steel.
If anyone wants to see what I did, Here's the LINK!

Aloha,
Willy
 
#21 ·
Don't worry about it. I just looked at mine. Don't need pix.

You will have to reproduce how the stock lens is mounted.

Here are two pictures I took front and rear view.

First I would reinforce the back side where the top hole needs to be located. A couple layers of resin and cloth will work.
Then drill a hole to fit a mounting screw using the bezel as a template.

The more challenging job will be to fabricate two mounting tabs to mount to the two screws protruding from the rear of your lense housing. (I would replace those two screws with longer ones.)

I would then mount the lense assembly via the hole you drilled.

Fabricate two metal brackets to mate to the two screws.
The two brackets can then be glassed to the inside with several layers of resin and cloth.

You could also fab the lip around the back of the arch as shown in these pictures. But that may not be necessary if the fender is thick enough in that area.

It is going to take some work but "it is what it is" with fiberglass.

Hope this all makes sense. Someone else may have some other suggestions.

Don
 

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#26 ·
Hey Charlie, on my old '55 gasser I made a metal piece that I mounted to the opening that was the same shape as the parking light housing with center open. I used 12 ga. aluminum to fabricate the base and mounted it inside the glass frontend so it sandwiched the glass between the aluminum and the lense assembly. I used some glass resin to glue the aluminum base to the inside of the frontend so it would stay if I ever removed the lense assembly. It held up great for my car.
 
#24 ·
Anybody bought from this vendor?
ScottRods, LLC
2512 Hiigbee Road
Monroeville, OH 44847
(419) 499-2705
I would not buy anything until you get some good customer feedback.

The person who bought the old company Rod N Race is from what I understand trying to turn things around. You can't just change the name.

But even if he does higher quality work he still probably uses the same molds.

I'm not saying all the molds are poor quality but what I saw and what I got from Rod N Race there had to be some mold issues. My roll pan and hood scoop were mold issues. I can't imagine a complete front end.

Just sayin.....

Don
 
#25 ·
Thanks
 
#27 ·
Hey Austin,
I spent much of yesterday trying to fabricate some 18Ga sheet metal tabs into the curve I needed on the inside of the hood around the parking lamp...I admit I finally gave up in disgust and drank beer for the rest of the aternoon. Today, I'm going to follow Don's advice and just get the tab for the top center mounting hole installed and then I"m going to forget about trying to make something that conforms perfectly to the countour of the fiberglass around the parking lamp and just build up layers of FG to make a contour that i can more easily attach my tabs to.
I was thinking of going the route you described but using a high quality marine plywood instead of aluminum.

Today the parking lamps installation is taking a back seat to getting the 55' lowered. the parts to lower the car will be here on Friday and I want everything ready to weld up on Saturday morning.
Besides I need to walk away from it for a day :) !
 
#30 ·
frontends

Heres a few more pics,The 56 is one we built about two monthes ago and added the tear drop for the customer,Fella's seem to like this scoop on the frontends cause we have built three of them with it ,we have about every hood scoop mold there is,we donot just glue our scoops on we glass them,Our frontends are handlaid glass made with 3 layers of 3 oz. mat and a layer of 1708 biax stitch for strength,we donot use core mat for strength its what most glass companies use for a stiffener and strength,its really nothing about the same as if you added cardboard.And all our parts and cars come in gloss black sanding gelcoat, reason being its just like paint, Black will show you how much of a ****- wave and flaw wise ya got right off the bat,if ya get a glass part in white or light gray check it out real well when you get it cause it hides the flaws until you start blocking the part.
The skull and crossbones is a front end we built for the Hildstrand brothers from tv's deadliest catch,A body shop in Florida is building two cars for them.I make frontends,doors bumpers,hoods and trunklids for the 53 thru 57 chevys.
Hopefully this helps you fella's a little bit,I did buy the former rod n race a few years ago from a guy that really destroyed any credibility they had,I will not get into the details about the 47 customers he hosed and we took care of as part of buying the business from him.As far as I know we satisfied all of them we had a past invoice for.Is my stuff we build perfect,Nope, but we do our best and have had very few complaints.Sorry I am just getting back on here,I will answer your questions,sends pics or whatever you need.You guy's got me measuring the 55 front rollpan now,I have sold several of them and got no feed back on them positive or negative,so will make sure the length is correct before anymore go out,Hope this wasnt to long winded,I really had hoped all the rod n race worries were in the past and they are slowly disappearing But I blame no one for being causious.

Thanks,
Scott Leber
ScottRods Custom
 
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